Adobe gives iPhone and iPad users 1,300 free fonts

iPhone and iPad users are getting thousands of new fonts for free, thanks to Adobe. On Friday, the company announced an update to Creative Cloud that will give users of its free app access to 1,300 fonts, while paid subscribers will get roughly 17,000 fonts.

Ease of use — Users previously had to go through a painstaking process to use just one font on iOS or iPad OS. Despite Apple streamlining the process for custom fonts with iOS 13, the App Store hasn’t had any significant font offerings since then. Now, with options beyond overused favorites like Helvetica, creatives can use typography for unique designs instead of mainstream aesthetics.

As an added bonus, all of the fonts are cleared for personal and commercial use. Pulling fonts can entangle creatives in legal battles, so this update gives them a truly free rein to design.

Drawbacks — You won’t be able to use the fonts everywhere. Developers have to enable these typefaces using Adobe’s Fonts API. So if you want to tinker around in Pixelmator instead of Photoshop, you might not be able to use them. The custom font feature is only available on iOS 13.1 and later iterations, so you might be forced to take the plunge if you haven’t already updated

While this massive font dump is a step in the right direction, creatives still have a long road ahead of them if they seek desktop-level functionality.